


flirting 101 (with five year-old grantaire)

by carryyourownbanner



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, Married!AU, but enjolras loves him anyway, grantaire was a tiny asshole, modern!AU, they talk about being dumb kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-31 05:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21088235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carryyourownbanner/pseuds/carryyourownbanner
Summary: fluff, reminiscing. grantaire rememberers the first time he met enjolras, with every detail down to the number of buttons on his shirt devoted to memory.enjolras doesn’t know whether to be concerned, endeared, or simply to humor his husband.





	flirting 101 (with five year-old grantaire)

It was a fuzzy memory, really, looking back. 

Many people can say they remember everything about the first time they met the person that they would end up marrying; Enjolras cannot. Now, this is not because it was not memorable- no, worth remembering; two kindergarteners fighting for the last swing is hardly romantic. Still, according to that boy who’s now his twenty-eight year-old husband living with him in Paris, that was when he fell in love with him.

“That was it? Right then?”

“Right then.”

“That’s not possible, Grantaire.”

“I beg to differ. Maybe I wasn’t in love with you then, that’s a given. But you know- I wanted to be your friend. I thought you were pretty.”

Enjolras raises an eyebrow. “Thanks,” he says wryly.

“No- no, I don’t mean it like that. Of course, for a second there, I wanted to kick you, because you wouldn’t just let me have the goddamn swing...”

Enjolras just chuckles as he watches him try desperately to scrub a frosted flake off of a bowl at the sink. “So nothing’s changed? Except for the swing. Now it’s the comfy chair.” Cosette’s father had given it to them a few years ago when they’d moved in together, and had accepted the ugly thing out of kindness, only to find that it was singularly the most comfortable piece of furniture either man had ever owned. “And when we first slept together-“

“The left side of the bed,” they say at once, Enjolras left snickering.

“I won.”

“I know. Believe me, I know you won. You did that the first time, too.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Well- if you recall my winning the fight for the swing so vividly, why don’t you recount it?”

“You’re saying you don’t?”

“That was twenty-three years ago, ‘Taire, cut me some slack. It’s not that I don’t love you, but I try not to see you as that snot-nosed kid, wrinkled Scooby-Doo t-shirt-“

“You do remember!”

“And that’s what you point out?” His expression is laced with amusement. His heart feels full with it. “Just- please. I want to remember, too, if you don’t mind. Humor me. Tell me a story.”

“Telling my own husband how I met him. When you hit your head on the wall by the bed every morning-“

“We need to fix that.”

“-how much memory do you lose?”

“Grantaire.”

“Fine, fine.” He shakes his hands dry and turns off the water. “Do I need to set the scene? September the fifth, nineteen-ninety-“

“You remember the _date_!?”

“Nah, I’m just fucking with you. It was probably... a Tuesday, though. I met you on a Tuesday.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now, uh- recess. The swings. I had Madame Dahlia, you had Madame Zephíne-“

“Why on earth do you remember our kindergarten teachers’ names-?”

“Enjolras, you wanted me to tell you a story.”

He stares pointedly at him across the counter. Enjolras smirks. “Fine. Carry on.”

“Carrying on. Alright, so then my friend what’s-his-name abandoned me to play with some new girl-“

“Oh my god. Grantaire, that was Marius.”

“Who?”

“You’re not funny.”

“Oh, I’m _hilarious_.”

“Okay, so Marius-“

“Mario?”

“Marius. Marius abandoned you. Then what?”

Grantaire bites his lip, as if in thought- he’s definitely not, just stalling. Enjolras wants either to kiss him and throw him face first into some gravel all at once. Some things never change. 

“Hm. Well. I reckon I had to go to the swings, then, if I were to meet you, the little boy who was too short to sit himself up on the swing-“

“I was not.”

“You were. Flopping around like anything.”

“I- and you didn’t help me?”

“I did,” Grantaire says, as if wounded by the assumption. Then he smirks. “That is, I helped you down.”

“You pushed me, you bastard.”

“If it makes you feel any better, it really, really hurt to see you cry.”

“I... why is that the only part I remember? And then you-“

“-I helped you up-“

“-and patted my knee-“

“-dusted your shirt-“

“-and told me you could kiss it better,” Enjolras says, blushing, remembering Grantaire’s innocent stammering all in the effort to right his wrong. “And then you kissed my knee, and...”

“You didn’t go to the nurse.”

“I didn’t have to. You kissed it better. R, pay attention.”

“Who’s telling the story here?”

Enjolras tilts his head. “There’s more?”

He snorts. “A lot more. Twenty-three years more, to be exact- and counting. We haven’t even touched on sixth grade-“

“Oh, dear lord.”

“Boy’s locker room-“

“Do not remind me of how you stole my shirt and ran off with it.”

Grantaire grins. “And then that field trip to... wherever, in eighth grade. I don’t remember where- all I know is I broke your ankle pushing you again-“

“You made a trademark of it.”

“But! The plot thickens. The next year, that’s when you told me you liked boys. Enjolras, when I tell you I was happy, I really mean this: ecstatic. I loved you from the beginning, I swear.”

“How could you not mention that dance of sorts two years after that? That’s when it... happened.”

“It?”

“I kissed you.”

“Oh? Tell me more.”

Enjolras huffs. “You took me out to your car-“

“And the shocking twist? We didn’t even have-“

“Grantaire, don’t ruin this for me. You took me out to your car and took me home, because someone- I can’t imagine who- spiked the punch, and you, for one, looked abhorrently guilty, and I felt sick.”

“I held your hair back when you threw up in the parking lot.”

“Romantic.”

“Real,” Grantaire corrects, smiling. “Real. This happened.”

Enjolras laughs. “Oh, it happened. And so did college... every weekend, I went to see you-“

“I got the ring three months out of high school.”

He pauses. “What?”

Grantaire breathes deep. “I got the ring three months after we graduated. Obviously I didn’t plan on using it for another... geez, almost seven years... but I felt better to have it. I already told you, I knew I was gonna marry you the moment I met you.”

Enjolras stares a minute before he finds his voice, buried somewhere beneath all his overflowing affection. “I- you thought this, at five years old, upon seeing me in whatever atrocity my mother dressed me up in-“

“Little red button-up. Sorta blackish-brownish shorts.”

“You’re thorough.”

“Yes. Do go on, darling.”

Enjolras has to recall his train of thought. “Well, you saw me, determined then that you’d make me your husband one day, and then proceeded to shove me off the swing?”

He groans. “You always must come back to that.”

“It’s very... prominent, in my memory.”

“For someone who said he doesn’t remember a thing, he doesn’t seem too keen to forget now.”

“Why should I? I’ll be more careful, too. I’ll write it down. I want to remember it.”

“For blackmail?”

“For nostalgia,” Enjolras says. “For being grateful that you’re not still that ugly thing I met back then.”

“And proceeded to become best friends with.”

And he smiles despite himself at that. “Yes. Best friends, then boyfriends, then engaged, and now- well. This one’s my favorite thus far, I think. Between that one and boy and the bully who pushes kids off swings.”

“Oh my god.”

“Give up now, ‘Taire. I’m never dropping that one.”


End file.
